In 2011, I had a vision for the PR industry.
I could see that online courses were going to become a big part of our lives—and I just knew if we had a few, people would line up to buy them all.
Together, we would move the industry forward and finally, finally become more united around what we do and how we prove results against an organization’s goals.
Wah, wah.
It bombed. We made zero dollars. Zero.
That’s not entirely true. One person bought but I felt so bad, I refunded her money.
Not to say my theory wasn’t correct, but we were so focused on the technology (an out-of-the-box learning management system didn’t exist back then) and the content, that we forgot about the sales and marketing side of things.
Not exactly forgot. We never even considered it.
I really, truly thought we’d send an email and post a few things here on the blog and on social media and you all would be lined up to let us help you evolve your careers.
And then we would sing kumbaya around the campfire while we roasted s’mores and drank wine.
That was a fun wake-up call.
Free Advice Is Worth Exactly $0
It took me a long time to lick my wounds and come back to it.
Four years long.
It’s not like I was sitting around, twiddling my thumbs.
I wrote and published two books, went on the speaking tour, traveled the world. And then came home and adopted a kid out of foster care.
I was plenty busy!
And four years later, a good friend invited me to his in-person mastermind event in Chicago.
I was there as the “expert” to talk about building community and creating content that has legs.
During that conversation, someone asked me how many email subscribers we had.
I proudly said:
I think it’s around 35,000.
There were some impressed smiles and lots of heads nodding.
Clearly I knew what I was doing when it came to community building and content creation.
Then someone else said:
And how much revenue do you generate from that list?
I said:
Oh, no revenue. It’s just a blog. We are focused on providing the best free advice in the industry.
The impressed smiles moved quickly to audible gasps.
I remember feeling like a deer in the headlights.
I’ll save you the gory details of what happened next, but I will tell you this: I kept my head down and took a lot of notes on the Marriott notepad in front of me, if only to stop myself from crying while they tore into me about how much I was leaving on the table.
The Evolution of the Spin Sucks Mastermind
I still have those notes taped on the wall in front of my computer because it was such a big wake-up call for me.
In big, bold letters that I circled in the middle of the page, it says:
People subscribe because they are begging you to give them more—and they will pay for it.
This is a really hard one for me.
I know people read this blog and listen to the podcast and hang out in our community because we give so much valuable stuff away.
But we also hear time and time and time again that so many of you would kill to have individualized attention from me.
I’m not going to lie—trying to figure out how to do that has been challenging.
In 2015, after that fateful event at the Marriott, I promptly launched my own mastermind.
I loved working with business owners through it, but it didn’t have a format or clear cut lessons.
It mostly was just us getting together every month to kibitz about the challenges of growing our businesses.
I made some lifelong friends—and so did they. In fact, some of them still do work together, which warms my heart.
But there weren’t a lot of measurable results from our time spent together.
I didn’t like that and I set out to find a solution.
Introducing the Spin Sucks Coaching Program
I sunsetted the mastermind two years ago to focus on building Close More Clients and then Agency Jumpstart—and to craft processes that would help agency owners not just build, but scale their businesses.
As we’ve built the marketing and sales funnel for those two programs (clearly I learned my lesson in 2011 with the big bomb of my career), we’ve talked to hundreds of agency owners.
Some of them have become clients. Some have not.
The thing they’ve told us over and over again, client or not?
If Gini ever finds the time to do one-on-one coaching, I’m totally in.
It’s taken me two years and literally hundreds of times hearing that to finally figure out how to make it work.
It’s not super easy to give more than a handful of people my individual attention because I have not yet figured out how to duplicate time.
But never fear!
After being knocked in the head 17,000 times, I finally got it.
And so…we are launching the Spin Sucks coaching program.
Finally.
What Is the Spin Sucks Coaching Program?
We’re taking pieces from the aforementioned mastermind—one-on-one coaching, group coaching, networking, and business building—and combining it with the lessons taught in both Agency Jumpstart and Close More Clients.
My goals for the clients in this program are to:
- Craft a 2020 plan that can be executed
- Create a new business pipeline that stays full even when client work takes you away from it
- Build a marketing funnel that keeps qualified leads coming in
- Conceive products that are an entry into a new client
- Build a process that can be replicated with great results, no matter the client
- Design additional revenue streams
- Learn how to market and sell online
Beyond that, the two of us will customize the remainder of your plan together to help you not just reach, but exceed your goals next year.
How Do I Sign Up?
You can learn more about Spin Sucks coaching, what’s expected of you, and how to sign up by clicking here.
If you prefer the Cliff’s Notes version, here is the process:
- You make a $500 refundable deposit. This indicates to me that you are serious and, because I haven’t yet figured out how to replicate time, I have to prioritize calls somehow.
- You complete an application. This will give me a high-level look at where you are and what you want to accomplish.
- Then you and I will have a conversation. Consider it a free coaching call. It will give you a better understanding of how I work (and where I might push you). And it’ll give me an understanding of where you are and where you want to go. Don’t worry! It’s completely confidential. My friends and family joke that I am like a highly-secure banking site. I never reveal what people tell me, which also makes me really boring at parties.
- If we decide we’d love to work together, you’ll make your first month’s payment (and we will apply your deposit toward that), we’ll schedule our first coaching call, and you’ll start to receive things to work on.
- If we decide we like each other, but the timing isn’t right, I’ll immediately refund your deposit.
That’s it!
There is no risk to you. At the very least, you and I get to have a fruitful conversation that will cost you nothing.
Come One, Come All!
The only thing is there is a bit of urgency.
We are closing down applications on Monday, October 7.
I need to have a few days to talk to all of you and then I want to get started so we can hit January with a running start.
If you’re interested, but don’t quite know how it’ll fit into your plans, my advice is to make the deposit, fill out the application, and let’s chat.
You’ll reserve a spot on my calendar and we can figure out how/if it fits into your plans together.
Now…what questions do you have before you decide to invest in yourself and have the most successful year of your agency’s life?
Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash
